| Madotsuki's Room | |
|---|---|
| |
| Basic Info | |
| Original Name(s) |
現実の部屋 |
| Effects |
None |
| Map Type | Small, Non-looping, Multiple maps |
| Events | Crick in the Neck, NASU, KALIMBA TV Channel, Ending |
| Notable NPCs | NASU, KALIMBA |
| Other | |
| Connecting Areas |
Nexus (From the Dream Room) |
| BGM |
ゆめにっき (Save theme) |
| Map ID | 0003 (Real Room) 0004 (Balcony) 0006 (Dream Room) 0007 (Dream Balcony day) 0008 (Dream Balcony night) |
| Version Added | 0.00 |
Madotsuki's Room is where the player starts and ends the game. This room and its balcony are the only locations Madotsuki can access outside of her dreams.
Features
Real World
Madotsuki's Room is where Madotsuki resides. It is a rectangular room with wooden floorboards and a light-purple wall with a dark-purple baseboard. To the north is a door leading outside of the room, though Madotsuki will simply shake her head when attempting to interact with it in the real world. This may be either due to her being a hikikomori, or because Madotsuki is physically unable to open it. To the south is a sliding door leading to the room's balcony, revealing the room is in a tall building high in the sky. The outside world as seen from the balcony changes depending on the time of day.
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Decorating the room are four pillows, a bookcase, a desk with a desktop lamp and rolling chair, a CRT television with a red Famicom console, a carpet resembling Mesoamerican textile art, and a brown bed which Madotsuki can get in to sleep, prompting a three second countdown in the top left corner of the screen. The rolling chair can be sat on to start writing in Madotsuki's diary, which gives the player the option to save the game. The television can be turned on, though only a test card appears and the television's only function is for playing NASU, which can be done by interacting with the Famicom. On the balcony are several air conditioning units, a pair of green shoes, a broom, and a drying rack.
In the manga, her room is the same and has the same role as the game. However, the manga dwells on the theory that she cannot leave the room because someone locked her in.
Dream Representation
When Madotsuki falls asleep in her bed, she will start her dream sequence on a dream representation of her balcony (夢ベランダ, Dream Veranda). Everything appears normal with the exception of the background, which will be different between the real and dream worlds. The bedroom (夢の部屋, Dream Room) is also nearly identical, with the exception of the missing Famicom.
Though the room appears overall the same, some objects within the room have different functions. The television will no longer display a test card, instead showing a black channel with a large eye. The television also has a 1/8 chance of showing a KALIMBA face and playing the KALIMBA TV Channel event. The rolling chair can also be sat in and equipped like an effect, letting Madotsuki move around while seated, though Madotsuki can not get off the chair until it is returned to her desk. Getting into the bed once again also has a 1/5 chance of being able to send you to the Staircase of Hands. Most important of all the differences is the door to exit her room, which can now be opened to enter the Nexus and thus the expansive dream world.
Trivia
- There is a 1 in 64 chance that upon waking up, Madotsuki will have a crick in her neck that will cause her head to be always facing towards the left. While in this state, she cannot play NASU or save the game and can only go back to sleep.
- In version 0.04, there is an unused panoramic background depicting several images of Madotsuki's room in a Fibonacci spiral formation. Though the use of this background is unknown, it could have been intended for Madotsuki's dream bedroom or the dream balcony.
- In versions before 0.07, the TV in the dream world had a different design on it. In 0.07, there is a 1 in 8 chance that the dream TV will be on by default.
- The door that leads to the FACE event in the stairway of Number World is the same one that Madotsuki refuses to open in the real world. This could suggest that FACE represents her fear of whatever is beyond her room. In the files of version 0.08, graphics for a Paracas-styled gate known as FACEtile could have been used instead.
Theories
Due to Madotsuki's room being the only thing to visually stimulate Madotsuki in the real world, it's likely that elements of her room have affected her dreams. Some elements of her room appear straightforwardly in her dreams, such as the identical Beds in places such as Block World and Snow World, the many lamps in places such as Puddle World and Lamp World (as she has a small lamp on her desk that lights up when writing in her diary), and even her door appearing in the Number World Stairway as well as doors being the main theme of the Nexus area adjacent to her dream room. Her Famicom, which can play the NASU game, appears to have also affected her dreams in the form of the various Famicom worlds. The large carpet in her room has a very similar appearance to Paracas textile work, which may have inspired the many instances of indigenous imagery in her dreams.
Madotsuki's room in the real world has drawn similarities to a story involving the Japanese comedian Tomoaki Hamatsu (also known by his stage name "Nasubi") and could have possibly been the inspiration for Madotsuki's real-world situation. In 1998, Nasubi had won a lottery for a job in show-business, which turned out to be a reality TV stunt in which he was locked in an apartment with no food or clothing, live-streamed, and forced to win his way out by earning one million yen worth of prizes via magazine sweepstakes. Some elements of Nasubi's experience, whether they were there from the beginning or were won through the sweepstakes, could be represented in Madotsuki's room:
- At the beginning of the challenge, he had a rack of magazines so he could enter sweepstakes. Madotsuki has a bookcase in her room filled with books.
- Other parts of the room before Nasubi had won anything included a cushion and table, which could be represented by the table that Madotsuki sits at and the various pillows scattered throughout her room.
- Nasubi won a television by entering sweepstakes, though it had no antennae or cable, so he could not watch it, similar to how the TV in Madotsuki's room has no channels. He eventually won a VCR and two video tapes to watch, which could be why two channels appear on Madotsuki's TV in the dream world (the eye channel and the KALIMBA channel).
- He won a Playstation on which he could play games, which could be represented by the Famicom in Madotsuki's room whose only playable game is NASU. The eggplant theme associated with NASU may also reference the "Nasubi" stage name.
- He also wrote in several diaries, which became best-selling books in Japan. The diary concept is central to Yume Nikki and is used to save the game.
- While not located in Madotsuki's Room, one of the unused effects is a black blindfold, a similar one of which was usually put on Nasubi whenever he was moved between locations during his challenge.
It's possible that the events of Yume Nikki are a fictional recreation of an event similar to Nasubi's own experience, which would explain why Madotsuki is unable to leave her room and is shown to live in the unrealistic condition of being in an apartment with no food or bathroom. This could be why she jumps from the balcony at the end of the game, as it is the only possible escape, and living in such conditions could have negative psychological effects on a person. It's also likely that KIKIYAMA was simply aware of the Nasubi story and used it as inspiration for the real world's setting.
Gallery
Madotsuki's balcony at night.
The room's tileset.
The balcony's tileset.
The first balcony parallax background.
The second balcony parallax background.
The first dream balcony parallax background.
The second dream balcony parallax background.
Madotsuki's room and balcony as they appear in the manga.
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